Motivational Quotes

Humankind

People can be divided into two classes: those who go ahead and do something, and those who sit still and inquire,why wasn't it done the other way?

- Holmes, Oliver Wendell

Best Quotes about Humankind

Ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil. [Genesis 3:5]

Bible

Mankind is not a circle with a single center but an ellipse with two focal points of which facts are one and ideas the other.

Hugo, Victor

Out of timber so crooked as that from which man is made nothing entirely straight can be carved.

Kant, Immanuel

No man really knows about other human beings. The best he can do is to suppose that they are like himself.

Steinbeck, John

People can be divided into two classes: those who go ahead and do something, and those who sit still and inquire,why wasn't it done the other way?

Holmes, Oliver Wendell

It's funny. All you have to do is say something nobody understands and they'll do practically anything you want them to.

Caulfield, Holden

The simplest single-celled organism oscillates to a number of different frequencies, at the atomic, molecular, sub-cellular, and cellular levels. Microscopic movies of these organisms are striking for the ceaseless, rhythmic pulsation that is revealed. In an organism as complex as a human being, the frequencies of oscillation and the interactions between those frequencies are multitudinous.

Leonard, George

One has but to observe a community of beavers at work in a stream to understand the loss in his sagacity, balance, co-operation, competence, and purpose which Man has suffered since he rose up on his hind legs. He began to chatter and he developed Reason, Thought, and Imagination, qualities which would get the smartest group of rabbits or orioles in the world into inextricable trouble overnight.

Thurber, James

We cannot despair of humanity, since we ourselves are human beings.

Einstein, Albert

10.

The true grandeur of humanity is in moral elevation, sustained, enlightened and decorated by the intellect of man.

Sumner, Charles

11.

Man is a beautiful machine that works very badly.

Mencken, H. L.

12.

Man must realize his own unimportance before he can appreciate his importance.

Baumgardy, R. M.

13.

Man is not only a contributory creature, but a total creature; he does not only make one, but he is all; he is not a piece of the world, but the world itself; and next to the glory of God, the reason why there is a world.

Donne, John

14.

Our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this planet. We all breathe the same air. We all cherish our children's future. And we are all mortal.

Kennedy, John F.

15.

[Three classes of people]: Those who see. Those who see when they are shown. Those who do not see.

Da Vinci, Leonardo

16.

What constitutes a real, live human being is more of a mystery than ever these days, and men -- each one of whom is a valuable, unique experiment on the part of nature -- are shot down wholesale.

Hesse, Hermann

17.

Be tolerant of the human race. Your whole family belongs to it -- and some of your spouse's family does too.

18.

People can be divided into three classes, the few who make things happen, the many who watch things happen, and the overwhelming majority who have no idea what has happened.

19.

A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly.

Heinlein, Robert

20.

The decay of decency in the modern age, the rebellion against law and good faith, the treatment of human beings as things, as the mere instruments of power and ambition, is without a doubt the consequence of the decay of the belief in man as something more than an animal animated by highly conditioned reflexes and chemical reactions. For, unless man is something more than that, he has no rights that anyone is bound to respect, and there are no limitations upon his conduct which he is bound to obey.

Lippmann, Walter

21.

We ought to think that we are one of the leaves of a tree, and the tree is all humanity. We cannot live without the others, without the tree.

Casals, Pablo

22.

Mind and spirit together make up that which separates us from the rest of the animal world, that which enables a man to know the truth and that which enables him to die for the truth.

Hamilton, Edith

23.

Man was nature's mistake --she neglected to finish him -- and she has never ceased paying for her mistake.

Hoffer, Eric

24.

One of the oldest human needs is having someone wonder where you are when you don't come home at night.

Mead, Margaret

25.

The basic fact about human existence is not that it is a tragedy, but that it is a bore. It is not so much a war as an endless standing in line.

Mencken, H. L.

26.

I teach you the Superman. Man is something that should be overcome.

Nietzsche, Friedrich

27.

Humanity is the virtue of a woman, generosity that of a man.

Smith, Adam

28.

Mankind are animals that makes bargains, no other animal does this.

Smith, Adam

29.

But remember please, the Law by which we live, we are not built to comprehend a lie, we can neither love nor pity nor forgive. If you make a slip in handling us you die.

Kipling, Rudyard

30.

Humans are amphibians -- half spirit and half animal. As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time.

Lewis, C. S.

31.

I would suggest that barbarism be considered as a permanent and universal human characteristic which becomes more or less pronounced according to the play of circumstances.

Weil, Simone

32.

Man is more interesting than men. God made him and not them in his image. Each one is more precious than all.

Gide, Andre

33.

The age of chivalry has gone; the age of humanity has come.

Sumner, Charles

34.

Man only likes to count his troubles, but he does not count his joys.

Dostoevsky, Fyodor

35.

Of all the ways of defining man, the worst is the one which makes him out to be a rational animal.

France, Anatole

36.

Being reproached for giving to an unworthy person, Aristotle said, I did not give it to the man, but to humanity.

Johnson

37.

The law of humanity ought to be composed of the past, the present, and the future, that we bear within us; whoever possesses but one of these terms, has but a fragment of the law of the moral world.

Quinet, Edgar

38.

I am human and let nothing human be alien to me.

Terence

39.

How is it possible that a being with such sensitive jewels as the eyes, such enchanted musical instruments as the ears, and such fabulous arabesque of nerves as the brain can experience itself anything less than a god.

Watts, Alan W.

40.

The race of man, while sheep in credulity, are wolves for conformity.

Doren, Carl Van

41.

We all live under the same sky, but we don't all have the same horizon.

Adenauer, Konrad

42.

Human beings are the only animals of which I am thoroughly and cravenly afraid.

Shaw, George Bernard

43.

Man's only true happiness is to live in hope of something to be won by him. Reverence something to be worshipped by him, and love something to be cherished by him, forever.

Ruskin, John

44.

As the archeology of our thought easily shows, man is an invention of recent date. And one perhaps nearing its end.

Foucault, Michel

45.

Man has, as it were, become a kind of prosthetic God. When he puts on all his auxiliary organs, he is truly magnificent; but those organs have not grown on him and they still give him much trouble at times.

Freud, Sigmund

46.

We are all cells in the same body of humanity.

Pilgrim, Peace

47.

Mankind is made great or little by its own will.

Schiller, Johann Friedrich Von

48.

If man had created man, he would be ashamed of his performance.

Twain, Mark

49.

Of mankind we may say in general they are fickle, hypocritical, and greedy of gain.